The Real Ice Prince
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: Rukawa ponders his interests in a redhead someone and reveals who the King of Ice is after all. One-shot. RuHana. Shounen-ai.


**Discalimer**: I do not own Slam Dunk and its characters; Takehiko Inoue does.

Even now I still ask myself why they call me Ice Prince.

Many times had I tried to establish a slight connection with him; kicked his bum, called him do'aho, told him how much of a loser he was, looked him straight in the eye, even talked to him in a manner you might wanna call cordial. But never did he respond in any way I would have appreciated or understood to be friendly. There was this great impulse that our nerves would acquire whenever we came too close in contact, and that was, at the very heart of things, that great barrier which stood between us.

I had this ominous energy around me, or my predilection were deceiving me; he would always be the first to know I had arrived even without turning to look. Or could it be that he had always anticipated my coming? I sure hope that was the case.

Even granted that, it had always been clear that all he was concerned about was to beat me in a bloody pulp and have me on his knees on a basketball court. In all honesty, I was more than willing to allow that if his heart would turn to mine. But that, or anything which might lead to that, never graced his thoughts, not even in his forgotten dreams. All he desired was to show the world he could be better than me. Was I willing to have him prove that? Of course, if he would be mine after that. It would cause me eternal joy.

Thoughts of attempts to disclose my feelings kept framing my mind, but no actions were performed. I had always been motionless as stone. What use would there be to tell him my desires if he would just dismiss it as a leaf that had fallen on his shoulder, or worse reject it as one would a terrible lover?

In a way, I was the only one who made him going during our game with Sannoh. I scorned his game because I knew it was more effective than the crowd's cheers or any manner of giving anyone conviction. But instead of my desired result with respects to his conduct towards me, his eyes burned with hatred as they met mine, and with that I knew he had become more alive than anyone in the stadium.

I gave him the final and winning shot. At three seconds left I was up in the air, positioned to throw a fade-away shot. But two of the best players in Japan had their arms waving in the air to bereave me of the shot. My mistake was that I used my left hand as the shooting hand and the right as the assistant. He saw through my error and therefore motioned to receive the ball. And I did give it to him. That was how he snatched the victory, how we worked together as a team. In sum, if it weren't for him and me, our journey to the nationals would have ended right then and there.

He looked at me in unutterable disbelief. Beads of perspiration rolled down our limbs. He went towards me, his eyes still locked on mine. It was as though all other audible waves had dissolved in the air, and all I could hear was his breathing and mine. He raised his right hand slowly up to his chest and stared at his palm for a few seconds, and, at long last, offered it to me. And I, not knowing what to do with it, slapped it with utmost energy for everyone to see this most peculiar encounter. Instinctively, we both turned around quickly when we realized what we had just done.

The celebration ensued, and never did he cast an eye upon me after that.

He was later on confined in the hospital for his back injury.

I was jogging one day by the shore when I saw him holding this get-well-soon card in his hand. I stopped to pay cordiality, but nothing escaped my mouth, nor did my face elicit a look of pleasantry. For the sake of not looking like an idiot, I opened my jacket to show him my All-Japan Team uniform.

And I persevered to tread the path away from him.

That was when I learned that he would never be mine, because winning against Sannoh was the biggest achievement a high school team could have attained. The celebration that should come after that would have to be the most emotional, tearful revelry ever to grace an athlete's career.

So was the perfect moment to observe the merest sign he did not despise me after all.

What I learned was worse than being condemned; he didn't care at all. Indifference was what he had for me. I can't say I didn't try hard enough or didn't go out of my own way for him; I just didn't have the power to make him stray his own path.

Do I really deserve the title Ice Prince? Certainly not.

He does.

**END**


End file.
